Endangered Species

Each year I await with dread the federal government's catalog of endangered and threatened species in the Hawaiian Islands, where I was raised and where I live. On its 2015 list, the Fish and Wildlife Service included the 'ea, or hawksbill turtle, as well as the green turtle, Ridley sea turtle, leatherback turtle and loggerhead turtle. Four mammals are considered endangered: the Hawaiian hoary bat; the kohola, or humpback whale; the sperm whale; and the endemic Hawaiian monk seal. Among the 34 endangered birds are the Hawaiian goose, or nene; the Maui parrotbill; the Nihoa millerbird; the red-legged stilt; and the i'o, or Hawaiian hawk. There were once 99 species of tree...

Related "Endangered Species" Articles

Each year I await with dread the federal government's catalog of endangered and threatened species in the Hawaiian Islands, where I was raised and where I live.
On its 2015 list, the Fish and Wildlife Service included the 'ea, or hawksbill turtle, as...

Zimbabwe will seek the extradition of Walter James Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who killed an iconic lion outside the perimeter of Hwange National Park in early July, a Zimbabwe Cabinet minister said Friday.
Oppah Muchinguri, the minister, said that the...

The illegal killing of a lion in Zimbabwe by a Minnesota dentist has focused attention on the elite hunting industry in southern Africa, which critics say is poorly policed and riddled with corruption.
With poaching of elephants and rhinos at a crisis...

A beloved lion who usually roamed within the confines of an African conservation park is dead. An American dentist on a hunting trip in Zimbabwe is the one who killed the animal. Many people are outraged.
The death of Cecil the lion also has some...

A 20-year struggle to protect a rare bottom-feeding fish from extinction appears headed toward resolution as Inland Empire cities and water agencies are asking the court of last resort to intervene.
Two cities and 10 water agencies say they will petition...

In an absurd twist, the villain of the California drought — once the almond farmer — is now the natural world, with some water districts and politicians regularly claiming that we set aside too much water for environmental purposes. Last week, the House...

Domestic cats may be cute and cuddly, but they’re also adept hunters. In the United States, cats kill billions of birds and small mammals a year, experts say.
But where does all this carnage happen?
Near people’s houses, a new study suggests. And not...

Vicunas, the wild Andean relatives of camels, are being hunted mercilessly by poachers as the price of the animals' luxuriantly soft hair, coveted by European and Asian apparel makers for coats, scarves and shawls, goes through the roof.
Police last...

Wild bees pollinate many crops, but some bees are busier than others.
On average, only 2% of wild bee species were responsible for 80% of the pollination visits witnessed by researchers around the world, according to a study published Tuesday in the...

The parking lot at the golf course began filling by evening — a procession of raised trucks coated in backcountry dust, an aging red Honda with a "Forever Stoked" bumper sticker.
But the 150 or so visitors hadn't come to this Humboldt County...

In Africa, an elephant is killed every 15 minutes by poachers. That's 96 illegal killings a day. At that rate, the African elephant could be extinct in 10 years, conservationists say.Poachers, armed with guns and, on occasion, rocket-propelled grenades,...

Desperate times call for desperate measures, which may explain why some critically endangered smalltooth sawfish are reproducing asexually in the wild.
The smalltooth sawfish is a member of the ray family, and under normal...

More than 120,000 critically endangered saiga antelopes — more than one-third of the worldwide population — have died in Kazakhstan since mid-May, and the cause of the “catastrophic collapse” is unclear, officials said.
“Not a single animal survived in...

The greater sage grouse once numbered into the millions, but its population has shrunk to no more than hundreds of thousands as human developments have expanded across 10 western states.
Now, the fate of the imperiled bird, is at the center of a battle...

A giant panda may look like a vegetarian on the outside, but it definitely looks like a carnivore on the inside.
A genetic analysis of 121 samples of panda poop finds that the community of microbes living inside these animals’ guts is optimized to...

The Obama administration on Monday announced conditional approval for Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc. to resume its long and troubled efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean, prompting a backlash from environmental groups that warned of the risks of...

For decades, oyster growers in southwest Washington have battled to control native shrimp that burrow in the mudflats and make it hard for oysters to grow.
Now, after getting state approval, a group of shellfish farmers plan to spray a widely used...

Experts have reported some good news about their long-running efforts to protect fish in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef: A ban on fishing in one large portion of the reef has helped fish throughout the habitat.
The protections also appear to have aided...

As the hub of California’s sprawling water system, the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta has been the focus of the state’s water fights for decades.Competing interests — environmental, urban and agricultural — have defeated repeated efforts to come up with a...

An unusually large number of whales dining in areas off the West Coast also prized by the fishing industry is contributing to an alarming surge in the number of cetaceans entangled in crabbing gear.
Environmental groups are urging state fisheries...